Inez McCombs

Virgin Islands Landscape

ca. 1950

James Earl Ray (1928-1998). Landscape with Orange Sky. ca. 1975. Oil on masonite panel measures 6.5 x 8.5 inches, 10.5 x 12.5 inches framed. Signed lowe...

Sterling Strauser (1907-1995). Dorothy and Jasper, Crystal Street Station, 1970. Oil on masonite panel, 11.5 x 22.25 inches. Signed and dated lower right. Very good condition with no damage or conservation. Unframed. Framing services available. Image depicts the artist's wife, Dorothy Strauser, walking the beloved family cat, Jasper. In the background can be seen the East Stroudsburg Pa Train Depot on Crystal Street. Provenance: Estate of the artist's Granddaughter, Princeton NJ. Often called a romantic expressionist and American intimist, self-taught Pennsylvania artist Sterling Strauser (1907-1995) completed his first oil painting in 1922- inspired by frequent visits to the collection of American folk art at the Everhardt Museum in Scranton. Throughout the following seven decades of his career, Strauser’s artistic pursuit was based on his own intuition and determination to paint what he saw, rather than adhering to the conventional pictorial structures prescribed by prevailing styles at the time. Strauser rejected pretension, believing instead that art should work from life as it was lived. His oeuvre therefore serves as an extremely personal record of his observations and experiences from his lifetime painting in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Beginning early in his career, Strauser took his inspiration from American regionalists and traditional realists in the Ashcan style, as well as European movements such as Fauvism and Cubism, yet he eventually developed his own fluid realism based on subject matter beloved and familiar to him- family and friends, local landscapes and floral still lifes. Known for his distorted pictorial space, exaggerated with vivid color, heavy impasto and an intensity of emotion, Strauser was adept at altering and rearranging the details and aspects of any given form to create a new kind of beauty. "All a painting has to do, or a piece of sculpture, or whatever, is to entertain the critical eye. You have to have a fresh seeing eye… to look at things like a child, as if looking at the world for the first time (seeing) something that somebody else doesn’t see, something you want to identify with… Painting is largely a matter of evaluation. (It) doesn’t matter how much it looks like the subject matter. It just depends on how interesting you have made it so that it pleases the critical eye." STERLING STRAUSER, STERLING STRAUSER: A MODERNIST REVISTED, P. 23 Sterling exhibited his work extensively throughout the country and drew the attention of many notable fellow artists including Milton Avery, Louise Nevelson, David Burliuk, Chaim Gross and Red Grooms. Sterling was also extremely influential within the arts community of Pennsylvania through his discovery and promotion of self-taught American Folk artists such as Justin McCarthy, Jack Savitsky, Joseph Gatto...

Boldly colored sunset seascape by California artist Richard "Don" Klopfer (1920-2009). Signed and dated in the lower left corner ("Klopfer 12-98"). Canvas laid down on Masonite. No frame. Board size: 7.5"H x 9.5"W Richard "Don" Klopfer (1920-2009) attended the National Art School in Washington D.C. and the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California. Klopfer was a life-long, passionate visual artist who worked in a variety of mediums, including oil paints, wood and bronze. His gallery "The Flair" was on Pico Blvd West Los Angeles from 1954 to 1980 was a gathering place for artists, friends and collectors. He was recognized for the use of brilliant color in his paintings and for leaving drawings everywhere he went. Klopfer's painting "My Old House" is on permanent exhibition at San Luis Obispo Museum of Art (SLOMA). He has also exhibited at The Los Angeles County Art Museum, Esther Robles Gallery, Third Street Gallery, Westwood Art Association, Barnsdale Park, and Robert Pyle Gallery. Selected Exhibitions: 1990 - Wild Horse Gallery - San Luis Obispo, CA 1991 - “South County Journey” - El Camino Arti Association Gallery - Pismo Beach...

A beautiful, atmospheric forest scene by American artist Gary Hicks (American, 20th Century), c.1970's. A small trail invites the viewer into this misty forest landscape, where layer...